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Brock University will spend $3.1 million to upgrade its Eleanor Misener Aquatic Centre.

But proponents of saving the West Park Pool say the restoration of the 32-year-old facility should have no impact on their ability to make a case to save their neighbourhood pool.

The renovations at Brock were approved at last week's board of trustees meeting. They will see extensive work done to the pool itself and to the roof.

The project is part of $25 million in deferred maintenance costs currently facing the university. Those costs are expected to climb to $100 million over the next five years as the school's buildings age. Many are now between 30 and 50 years old.

Brock University president Jack Lightstone urged the board to approve the project for both the students at the school and the many people in the community who use the aquatic centre.

"Many of our facilities are for the benefit of Brock, but they are also for the benefit of the community," he said.

But St. Catharines city Coun. Matt Harris, who is working to save the West Park Pool from closure, said the Brock renovations won't hurt their efforts. If anything, he said, the project proves another facility is needed beyond the city's new Kiwanis aquatic centre, set to open in the spring.

"It may actually help us for a bit," he said, noting the university may be able to use the West Park Pool while it renovates its own.

"They may need a place to use for a while. It might help us keep the pool open so we can find some options."

The work at Brock will require the pool to close from April to September 2013, when the project is expected to be completed.

Harris and fellow St. Andrew's ward councillor Joe Kushner have been working with the community to save the West Park Pool. They passed a motion at a recent community meeting asking city council to hold off making a decision until the District School Board of Niagara decides the fate West Park Secondary School, which shares a building with the pool.

The school could face closure under the terms of an ongoing accommodation review.

Harris said the cost to repair the Brock aquatic centre caught his attention. It doesn't make sense when you compare it to the $2 million to $4 million being cited as the bill to fix the West Park Pool, which is smaller than the university facility.

"That's a pretty big pool," he said of the Brock pool. "What are the numbers they're throwing around for West Park?"

Herb de Bray, former manager of Brock's Eleanor Misener Aquatic Centre, said he, too, thinks the city's cost estimates to repair West Park Pool are high.

"If Brock is going to do that kind of work on their pool for $3.1 million .... you could almost replace West Park for that much."

When Brock built the pool in 1980, it cost $3.1-million, the same amount the school will pay to renovate it.

De Bray said that during his time at Brock, they gathered statistics on use and found that the majority of their patrons were not from St. Catharines. Around 65% of the pool users were from outside of the city, he said.

He'd like to see the West Park pool refurbished and remain open.

"I've always been a supporter of swimming pools, no matter where they are," he said. "Closing down a pool to me is a real waste. You take that activity away from people. They don't learn how to swim and they drown. Drowning statistics have not been very good in Ontario lately."

Ken Draayer, a member of a group trying to save the West Park Pool, said news of the Brock renovations demonstrates the need for consistent provision of aquatic services.

"There is going to be some demand on other pools and if the city remains a one-pool town, the demand on the new pool, one would expect it would increase," he said.

Draayer said the pools have co-existed for decades and a renovated Brock pool won't cut into West Park's current membership. Brock's facility is not accessible to many in the city, he said.

"If that were a problem, it would have been a problem all through the lives of the two pools," he said.

The group will bring its concerns to the city budget meeting on March 5.

"We're not expecting things to go easy for us," he said. "I think our motion is not a budget motion so much as it is a motion that asks the city to give us all some time to engage in an assessment of the need for a second pool in town."